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Subject: [NYRICHMO-L] SI Real Estate, 1873
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 10:49:06 EST

from the NY TIMES
22 Mar 1873

STATEN ISLAND
ITS VILLAGES AND ADVANTAGES--
REAL ESTATE OPERATIONS

Staten Island is probably the last of the four directions in which
suburban homesteads will be extended from the Metropolis for some years to
come, unless, forsooth, some of the mooted, but as yet dormant, projects for
reaching it are begun, and actively pushed forward. Lying, as a great part of
it does, within less than seven miles of the Battery, Staten Island should
have long ago absorbed a considerable share of the outflow of population of
New York, for as a place of residence, if the facilities of communication
were better, few places could possibly be more desirable. Situated in the
bosom of the beautiful bay and harbor, and constituting as it does the real
gem of these waters, the island should teem with population. But saving the
North and North-east shore, it is comparatively an uninhabited island,
devoted to limited agricultural uses.
From its most easterly point, at Clifton (near Fort Tompkins), to Howland'
s Hook, its north-westerly extremity, there is a continuous chain of
villages, known respectively as Clifton, Stapleton, Tompkinsville, New
Brighton, Factoryville, Elliottville, Port Richmond, and Mariner's Harbor.
These villages comprise a total population of 18,000 or about three-fifths of
the entire number on the island. Leaving out New Brighton, Tompkinsville, and
Clifton, there is no notable progress or improvement going on in the island,
and all the other places named, though possessing many natural attractions,
have scarcely increased within the past six or seven years.
New Brighton, the northerly point of the island, is beyond question the
most beautiful as well as the most select location and is clustered with some
of the most elegant rural residences to be found in the vicinity of the
Metropolis. The greater proportion of these residences occupy eminences of 50
to 120 feet above the waters of the harbor, and are of the villa style of
architecture so admirably adapted to the suburbs. Many of them have cost from
$15,000 to $80,000. New Brighton, with the adjoining village of
Tompkinsville, (the old Quarantine landing) holds the highest rates of real
estate values on the island, the former as a place of residence and the
latter for its greater business facilities. As New Brighton property
available for building purposes is held at from $1,000 to $3,500 per lot,
with a few pieces here and there at lower rates. The only real estate
operation of any notice which has taken place here recently was the sale at
auction in July, 1872, of 450 lots.
At Tompkinsville there has been considerable activity in the past four or
five years, principally growing out of the sale of the the old quarantine
property, embracing a water frontage of about 1,000 feet and 500 lots, all of
which were sold by the State for $220,000. The purchasers have since sold the
water front and about half the number of lots for $250,000, and two new
streets have been put through the remaining property. These 250 lots are
held at $1,500 each, that valuation being put upon them under oath in a
recent investigation which brought [illegible] the question of the original
sale. These lots are about as eligibly located as any in the village, and
give a fair idea of relative values, being only two or three minutes' walk
from the ferry landing, and the ground being very high and healthy, Clifton
is the most eligible location on the island in point of grandeur of
surrounding scenery, as it extends over the bold promontory on which Fort
Tompkins is built, and has a view range of twenty-five to sixty miles, north,
east and south, covering the lower bay, Sandy Hook, Navesink Highlands, and
the ocean. Directly across the Narrows, Long Island seems like an illustrated
map spread at the feet of the observed and looking to the north are New York,
Brooklyn and Jersey City, with the busy bustle of vessels in out and to and
fro across the harbor. All the other fortifications in the Harbor of New York
may be taken within the birdeyes view afforded from the parapet of this
splendid earth castle. Clifton is, unfortuantely, however, a mile from the
lower or Vanderbilt Landing, and in this respect suffers somewhat in
accessibility. There is a line of street railroad which makes hourly trips
between New Brighton, Tompkinsville, Stapleton and Clifton, timed
substantially on the arrival of the ferryboats from New York. The leading
thoroughfare along this shore is New York avenue, and on this line good
building sites may be purchased for $500 to $1,000. There really does not
appear to be any valid reason why Staten Island should be so inaccessible as
it is at present, and there is good reason to believe that even with
half-hourly communication the prospects of the island would be benefited
seventy-five per cent. Now the boats make hour trips up to 8 or 9 o'clock PM
and there is usually a boat at 11 o'clock. After that hour the island is
completely isolated. The ferry service is done by two lines, one of which,
the North Shore Ferry, touching at New Brighton, Factoryville, Port Richmond
and Mariner's Harbor, had the New York terminus until quite recently at the
foot of Dey street. Lately, however, it has been removed to Whitehall slip,
adjoining the East Shore Ferry, at the Battery. It is singularly illustrative
of the sensitiveness of real estate to local transit facilities that this
removal of the New York terminus a distance of about half a mile has actually
depressed the value of property at Port Richmond and the other stations on
the line, for the reason that the removal to the Battery has placed the ferry
somewhat more remote from the great business centre of New York.
From Vanderbilt Landing the Staten Island Railroad, which also operates
the ferry line, runs to Tottenville, the extreme southerly village of the
island, but Tottenville is not much in the market as a suburban settlement.
It is very pretty and rather staid, old-fashioned and out of the way. Should
the bridge projected some years ago to connect the island with Elizabethport
or with the town of Bayonne, at Bergen Point, ever be built, property at the
north end would be extremely desirable, and would rapidly increase in value.
The north shore would then have the advantage of all the trains of the New
Jersey Central Railroad, giving frequent and rapid communication from 5 or 6
o'clock AM until midnight. At present property rates are low all over the
island, and to those whose convenience may be suited by the existing means of
travel to and fro it offers a pleasant, picturesque, healthy, and cheap place
of settlement.
**********
Cheers!
Holly Tooker

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